


Today's Gonna Be Bad

by Jaded_Girl_83



Category: Early Edition
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, one year post-canon to be precise, the whole show would have had to change...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaded_Girl_83/pseuds/Jaded_Girl_83
Summary: What can you do when you find yourself staring into the apocalypse? Some things are just too big.





	Today's Gonna Be Bad

Any sane person would know better than to awaken a Chicago cop at the crack of dawn by hammering on her front door and ringing the doorbell obsessively. Particularly if said cop was recovering from five solid days of wrapping up a triple homicide.

As none of her neighbors were the suicidal type and none of her collars were out on parole yet, she could only assume that said lunatic was Gary Hobson.

Toni Brigatti grabbed her gun just in case, and tried to clear her mind of the twofold assault of exhaustion and adrenaline. As she neared her front door, she could hear the familiar masculine voice repeating her name in tones of increasing desperation.  She swung open the door and jerked him inside, hoping to God that she’d caused him a significant degree of discomfort. “What is the matter with you?!” she hissed.  “My neighbors are going to call the cops, and I think we can both agree that that would be awkward as h-”

“Get dressed. Hurry!”  He barely looked at her as he strode to her bedroom and pulled a pair of jeans and a shirt from the closet.  “We need to move.  We can’t let it happen, but I need your help.  I need your contacts.  It’s too big for me to handle alone!”

“For the love of God, Gary- _calm down!_ ” she snapped, alarmed at how he was falling apart.  She blocked his path.  “Give me the paper!”

He hesitated, a strange look on his face. She frowned at his reluctance, but everything faded away as she saw the full front page spread.

**_OUTRAGE_ **

**_AMERICA IS CHANGED FOREVER AS  
TERRORISTS MURDER THOUSANDS_ **

Hijacking.

Pentagon.

New York.

Attacked.

She stared at the black clouds covering New York City, her brain struggling to comprehend the magnitude of the news. Unsteady fingers pried apart the pages, and she read far more slowly than was her wont.

_A plane crashes into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. The building erupts in smoke…_

_A second plane, believed to be United Airlines Flight 175, crashes into the center's other tower with equally devastating results…_

_American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, igniting the building…_

She lowered her trembling body onto her bed. “My god…” she breathed through a hoarse throat.  It was all she could say.  There was nothing else _to_ say.

Gary began to pace the room. “We need to move fast,” he croaked, taking the paper back and wringing it between his hands.  “I’ll call up the airports and report a bomb or something.  You can contact your friends in the Marshals and see if you can get word to the Pentagon.  If we can find a way to… I don’t know, pull a fire alarm or something at the Twin Towers, maybe we can-”

“No!” Toni cried, her head jerking up to look at him in alarm. “No, Gary!  You can’t do that!”

“The hell I can’t!” he thundered back. “I’m not going to just sit back and let thousands of people die!”

She leapt to her feet and grabbed his arms, knowing that the panic was showing on her face. “Gary, _listen to me_!  You can’t do that; you can’t do _any_ of those things!”  She ripped the newspaper from his hands and waved it in his face.  “This is beyond anything you’ve ever dealt with.  The fallout-”

“I don’t care how big it is! Toni, _thousands of people_ -”

“ _The fallout_ from this,” she shouted over his objections, grabbing his collar in both hands, “will be beyond anything you’ve ever even seen!  You won’t just have to deal with the local police department, or even Federal agents!  Gary,” she pleaded, shifting her hands to capture his face, forcing him to be still and look at her.  She _had_ to make him see.  “Gary, this is going to involve the entire nation. _A nation that will be out for blood_.  They will track every lead, every hint, every crumb of evidence pointing to someone who had foreknowledge.  Those people will be considered _accomplices_.”

He twitched against her palms, a small flash of sense breaking through. But it was instantly buried beneath his fundamental goodness, that goodness that compelled him to go out day after day with no reward for his troubles… and far too often, trouble instead of rewards.  He tried to pull his head away.  “I still have to tr-”

She held him tight. “No, Gary.  No.  This will make the Scanlon incident look like cradling a baby.  Even a presidential assassination wouldn’t cause this sort of outcry.  If you get involved in this, the best you could hope for is that enough people find out about the paper to keep you from the _electric chair_ , and _then_ every single newsroom is going to hunt you down and dig for any and every skeleton they can find until they find out why!  Your life will be ruined, Gary. _The paper_ will be ruined.  Do you understand?  You won’t be able to help anyone else again.”

“You’ve got to help me!” he shouted, his tone madly desperate. “Marissa said you could!  Marissa said to talk to you!”

Toni threw out a silent prayer of thanks. Marissa Clark could be standing in the middle of a national Mensa conference and still be the smartest person in the room.  Unable to calm Gary and also unable to dissuade him from action, she’d at least bought some time and gambled that Toni might be able to make him see sense.  Toni took a quiet breath, determined not to let Marissa down.  “Gary, there is nothing I can do.  There is nothing we can do.”  Another bracing breath.  “There is nothing you can do.”

He slammed her against the nearest wall, his fingers digging into her upper arms. She held perfectly still, staring unblinkingly into his eyes.  His mouth moved with every heavy breath, but no words escaped from a throat tight with fury and frustration.  After a moment, Toni reached out and stroked the side of his face.

With a cry both angry and plaintive, that face crumpled, and he lurched as his knees gave out under him. Gary’s hands were still gripping her shoulders, so Toni tried to grab his arms at the elbows to slow his descent, but his greater weight brought them both to the floor.  Gary sobbed openly, his harsh gasps shaking both their bodies.  She knew bruises would form where he clung to her, but she ignored the thought.  She stroked his hair, and rocked his bulk back and forth as the biggest heart she’d ever seen cracked into pieces.

A good hour later found them quietly sitting together on the floor, backs to the wall, and Toni deciding that she did not like that empty look on his face at all. “Gary.”

He didn’t respond. It took saying his name two more times before he finally raised his eyes, and even then, his gaze passed right through her.  “Gary, there is something you can do.”

There was a tiny crack in his haze of despair. She handed him the cordless phone from her nightstand.  “Call your parents.  Call Chuck.  Call Marissa.”  Her face quirked in a humorless smile.  “I’m sure she’s worried about you.”

Gary stared at the phone with more than a touch of resentment in his expression; Toni was sure it all felt very inadequate at the moment. But he eventually took it, and began punching numbers.  She listened to the muted buzz, and the sound of Lois’ drawled greeting.  “Hi, Mom,” Gary rasped.

The voice from the other end sounded excited for a split second, but the tone shifted into worried demands. “No I’m f…  Well, actually… go get Dad for a second, would you?”

The handset went quiet, then a pair of voices started interrogating from the tiny speaker. “No, listen, I’m not hurt or in trouble or anything.  I just wanted… I just wanted to tell you…”

Gary faltered, the muscles of his throat jumping erratically. Toni settled against his side, and took his free hand in a reassuring grip.  His hand spasmed in response, and he took a shaky breath.  “I just wanted to warn you two.  Today… today’s gonna be bad.”

There was another slew of questions, and Gary’s hand tightened around her own. “I can’t… I’m sorry, but I just can’t.  There’s… there’s nothing I can do about it.  Actually,” he blurted, the crack in his voice disappearing in a sudden rush of words, “if you have any friends that are flying out of D.C. or visiting New York, see if you stop them somehow!”  Toni shot him a warning glare, and he responded with a grudging look.  “But don’t act weird or anything.  Toni says to avoid anything that’ll seem suspicious in hindsight, or you’ll get in big trouble.  Today’s going to be… be really…”  He trailed off again, and drew a hand across his eyes.  “I love you.  I don’t say it enough, but I do.  And I can’t wait to see you both again.”

The line was silent for a moment, followed by a brief reply, quiet and frightened. Gary jerked his head in assent, heedless of the fact that his parents couldn’t see the gesture.  “Listen, I gotta go.  I gotta call Chuck and some other people.  I’ll visit soon, okay?”  He blinked, then let out a breath that was actually halfway amused.  “Yeah, I’ll bring Toni.”

Toni squeezed his hand again, and his response was somewhat calmer. “Love you both.  Bye.”


End file.
